I sat up suddenly, panic propelling me upright. Unease spread from the top of my head and down my body. I went to stand up, but my legs wouldn’t follow the command of my brain. My heart started to pound, and my vision blurred at the edges.
“Help!” I tried to call out but couldn’t pull enough air into my lungs to get the word out. Instead, I sat hyperventilating until the water turned cold.
“Queenie?” my grandmother screeched. “Stop pussyfooting around, those sheets need to go!”
Although I could now move my legs, I couldn’t stand for the shaking. I didn’t know if it was the cold or the adrenaline.
“What you still in here?” She burst into the bathroom, and I pulled the shower curtain around me.
“Queenie you must be mad. You think I’m looking? You should have seen my form when I was your age, I put all ah yu to shame.”
“I feel really weird, I think I should go back to bed. I’m shaking, look.” I held my hands out.
“You think I haven’t shaken worse in my life? After I had your mother, I shook for a year. Come out the bath.”
* * *
Two weeks passed. A fortnight of chores, of feeling so ill, of refusing phone calls and ignoring messages, of panicking silently so as not to make my grandparents aware of my weakness.
On Tuesday morning, somewhere between my first bath of the day and taking the recycling out, my phone buzzed with a number that I didn’t know. I answered it cautiously with the hand that wasn’t balancing milk cartons and empty porridge boxes.
“Hello, am I speaking to Queenie Jenkins?” a droll woman’s voice said on the other end of the phone.
“Yes. Who is this?” I asked, walking down the front path.
“My name is Amanda, I’m calling from SLAM. We received your referral letter,” the woman said, her tone exactly the same as before.
“SLAM?”
“South London and Maudsley?” she said. “We received your referral for talk therapy.”
I dropped the recycling into its box and turned to look at the house to check that nobody was watching. The coast seemed to be clear, but my grandparents had supersonic hearing, so I let myself out of the gate and walked toward the main road.
“Oh. That was quick,” I told her. “I thought it would take months, if you’d get back to me at all.”
“It usually does, yes, but we had an opening. Would you be able to come in for an initial assessment?” Amanda from SLAM pushed on. “It’ll just be a chat, it shouldn’t take more than an hour.”
“Er, sure. Maybe. Can I think about it?” This was all a bit of a shock. “Where are you based?”
“Camberwell, just opposite King’s Hospital and behind Denmark Hill station,” she recited. “Once we’ve got your assessment booked in, we’ll send a letter out to you, and it’ll have all the information you need. You don’t need to worry about addresses now.”
The next opening they had was in a week’s time, which seemed soon, but I agreed to it quickly before I could um and ah and talk myself out of it. I walked back to the house and saw my grandmother standing on the porch, arms folded.
“Who were you on the phone to?” she asked, lips suitably tight again.
“Nobody!” I said.
“So why yuh look so worried?” she quizzed.
“No reason. It was nobody. I’m going upstairs.” I kept my head down, concentrating on taking my shoes off.
“Hm. You think I need to look into your eyes to know that you’re lying to me?” she said, before kissing her teeth and walking into the kitchen.
THE CORGIS
Darcy
How’s it going, Queenie? Missing you! xxx
Kyazike
Yeah, fam, it’s not like you to be quiet
Queenie
Hi both
Queenie
I’m not good
Queenie
But I’ll be fine
Darcy
Take your time! There’s no rush!
Queenie
Of course there’s a rush. I’ve felt bad for so long. I just want to be better. I want to be normal
Darcy
A lot has happened to you, Queenie. It’s a huge amount to process. But you’ll get there!
Queenie
I guess
Kyazike
Ah, fam. I know it’s mad, still, but you’ll be back to yourself in no time. Trust me. In the meantime, you ain’t missing out on anything. I haven’t even been on any dates I can entertain you with
Queenie
Ha
Queenie
I think I’m going to go off-grid for a bit, if that’s all right. Talking to you just reminds me that I’m a shell of the Queenie you were friends with
Darcy
You’re Queenie! You don’t have to be one way or another for us to love you. But you take your time. We’ll always be here. Xxxxxx
Kyazike
Exactly. What Darcy said. Love, fam
That night and the night after, I lay awake, thinking about how best to approach the introduction of counseling to my grandparents. I didn’t entertain the idea of lying to them; since I’d been staying here, every second of my time was accounted for, logged, and discussed.
On Friday morning, after our porridge, I decided that after I’d taken a letter to the postbox for my granddad would be the time to tell first my grandmother about it, and then, judging from her reaction, navigate how to tell my granddad.
“I heard you fall out of bed last night,” my grandmother shouted from the kitchen as I walked down the stairs.
“Sorry,” I shouted back. “Second time that’s happened this week. Maybe I should put some pillows on the floor!”
“You’re not putting anyting from the bed on the floor,” came the expected response. “And what’s this?”
“What’s what?” I said, walking into the kitchen. She sat at the table, arms folded like a mob boss.
“Close your dressing gown when Granddad is around.” She tutted, unfolding her arms and sliding a letter across the table toward me.
I picked it up and saw the National Health Service header. An apology left my lips before I could read any farther.
“You trying to shame all ah we?” she asked. Her eyes burned like hot coals.
“No, but I need help, don’t I?” I half-asked her. “And a-a nurse referred me, and I didn’t want to do it, because I know that we should just be strong and try to get through these things bu—” This one wasn’t going to go well.
“You know how much pain me carry?” My grandmother slammed her hand on the table. “You know how much pain I have to tek tru’ my yout’ and my twenties and beyond? You know what my madda, your grandmadda, woulda said if me did tell her me ah go seek psychotherapy? You mus’ be MAD.”
“I don’t know what to say,” I said. “I need to go and speak to someone, Grandma. I feel ill, I have this weight on my chest, I lost my job, I’m not well.”
“None ah we well. Look at yo’ mudda, livin’ in hostel after that man bruk up her life and beat ’er and tek ’er money. Yuh tink she ah go psychotherapy? Ah you mek yourself lose your job becah you nah hold it together. You are nat going.” My grandmother was shaking.
“Maybe I should leave here, then, and go—”
“Where you ah go stay? Cyaan stay wid yo’ mudda, yo’ fadda swannin’ around in Jamaica wid young gyal, Maggie cyaan tek you in. Das why you’re wid us, under our roof.” My grandmother’s accent had become so thick I had to work hard to keep up with what she was saying.
“I’ll go and stay with friends, then,” I said. “Grandma, I never ask anything of you, I never do anything to bring shame on anyone!” I tried to say calmly, to not anger her any further. “I was the first person in this family to finish school, to go to college, to get a degree, to get a full-time job—”
“Yes! And di firs’ person to go to psychotherapy!” My grandmother hit the table again. “I am telling you. You are nat going.” She folded her arms. The conversation was over. “And dat is dat.”
“What’s going on, Veronica?” My granddad shuffled into the kitchen, trailing his walking stick across the linoleum. “What coulda ’appen to make you speak such strong patois and bruk up di table?”
“Let yo’ granddaughta tell you,” my grandmother said, kissing her teeth and pushing herself up from the table. She went over to the sink and started to wash up so furiously that suds splashed onto the ceiling.